Australia's Sleep Revolution with Dr Michael Mosley (ATOM Study Guide)

NB: This study guide includes both a full guide as well as a condensed Grab and Go version.

This intimate and deeply personal three-part series sees renowned medical journalist Dr Michael Mosley return to Australia to resolve his chronic, long-term insomnia. To do this, Michael, along with some of the nation’s poorest sleepers, put their bodies on the line to trial a pioneering sleep treatment program being developed by the Flinders University Sleep Institute. The thirty participants in the trial are insomniacs like Michael or are sufferers of sleep apnoea, and there are some who are in the highest risk category with both conditions – known as COMISA (co-morbid insomnia and sleep apnea).

For Michael and his fellow participants, the trial is their last hope. Everything they’ve tried previously to fix their sleep issues has failed, wreaking havoc on their mental health and sowing the seeds of chronic disease. The Flinders sleep scientists are on a mission to change that by launching a world-first, multidisciplinary sleep trial with cutting edge sleep monitoring technology that aims to treat the root cause of sleep problems.

With 40 per cent of Australians getting inadequate sleep, Michael and the Flinders team head to Canberra with a cunning plan – to rig up the beds and bodies of a handful of politicians with their sleep tech. If they can shine a light on the poor sleep health of our nation’s biggest decision makers, they could get sleep back on the government agenda and inspire an entirely new way of treating sleep disorders across the Australian health system.

Curriculum Links:

Australia’s Sleep Revolution is suitable for middle school (Year 7–9) students undertaking:

• Science
• Geography
• Health and Physical Education

It also has further links to the Cross-curricular priority of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures.